Provoke
Subtitle: between protest and performance : photography in Japan 1960 / 1975
By: edited by Diane Dufour, Matthew S. Witkovsky, with Duncan Forbes and Walter Moser
Contributors: Graphische Sammlung Albertina; Fotomuseum Winterthur; Bal (Art organization : Paris, France); Art Institute of Chicago
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Steidl
Published: 2016
Language: eng; jpn
Number of pages: 679
ISBN-13: 9783958291003
Subjects: Photography; Artistic Photography; Exhibitions
Description: The short-lived Japanese magazine Provoke is recognized as a major achievement in world photography of the postwar era, uniting the country's most contentious examples of protest photography, vanguard fine art, and critical theory of the late 1960s and early 70s in only three issues overall. Provoke is accordingly treated here as a model synthesis of the complexities and overlapping uses of photography in postwar Japan. The writing and images by Provoke's members -- critic Koji Taki, poet Takahiko Okada, photographers Takuma Nakahira, Yutaka Takanashi, Daido Moriyama -- were suffused with the tactics developed in some Japanese protest books which made use of innovative graphic design and provocatively "poor" materials. Recording live actions, photography in these years was also an expressive form suited to emphasize and critique the mythologies of modern life with a wide spectrum of performing artists such as Nobuyoshi Araki, Koji Enokura and Jiro Takamatsu. This catalogue accompanies the first exhibition ever to be held about the magazine and its creators and focuses on its historical context. It covers the preliminary period leading to its first and the aftermath following its last issue. Provoke takes shape as a strongly interpretative explanation of currents in Japanese art and society at a moment of historical collapse and renewal.
Notes: Catalog of an exhibition held at Albertina, Vienna, January 29-May 8, 2016; Fotomuseum Winterthur, May 28-August 28, 2016; LE BAL, Paris, September 14-December 11, 2016; and the Art Institute of Chicago, January 28-April 30, 2017.

Some Japanese texts have been transliterated into English.

Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Japan during the provoke era  -- Yukio Lippit; title: Protest --; title: Photography, protest, and constituent power in Japan, 1960-1975  -- Duncan Forbes; title: Kaneko Ryūichi  -- interviewed by Matthew S. Witkovsky; title: Provoke --; title: Provoke: photography up for discussion  -- Matthew S. Witkovsky; title: Moriyama Daidō  -- interviewed by Diane Dufour and Walter Moser; title: Takanashi Yutaka  -- interviewed by Diane Dufour and Walter Moser, with Sawada Yoko; title: Performance --; title: Images of masturbation, defecation, filth, and shame: Hijikata Tatsumi and photography  -- Walter Moser; title: Hosoe Eijō  -- interviewed by Walter Moser; title: The individuality of the photograph: Takamatsu Jirō's Photograph -- Mitsuda Yuri.